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NEWARK, Ohio — David Brown thought a Licking County judge was wrong in refusing to let him take
back his guilty plea in 2012. An appeals court agreed, but the “victory” ended up costing Brown an
additional year in prison yesterday.

Common Pleas Judge David Branstool sentenced Brown to eight years and nine months in prison.
Jurors found Brown guilty of attempted murder, felonious assault, discharging a firearm on
prohibited premises and tampering with evidence, with additional gun specifications on each count.
They took less than an hour to reach their verdict.

Branstool had sentenced Brown to seven years, nine months in prison in 2012 when he pleaded
guilty in the attack. But Brown had appealed after the judge wouldn’t let him rescind his plea, and
he went to trial. He had been free since winning his appeal.

After yesterday’s verdict, Brown told the judge that, three weeks before the shooting, he had
prayed to God to help him stop drinking. As regretful as that sign from God might have been, “I
thank the Lord that he did put something in my life to make me quit drinking,” Brown said, adding
that he has maintained his sobriety since the shooting.

Brown’s attorney, Max Sutton, acknowledged that his client had grabbed a Ruger .454-caliber
revolver moments after a county-owned truck with a mosquito sprayer had passed as he stood outside
his house on a residential Newark street about 10 p.m. on the day of the shooting. Brown jumped on
a bicycle, raced a couple of blocks to catch up to the truck and fired three shots into the driver’s
-side door and window.

The driver, Ronald Dierks, was not seriously injured. A bullet grazed his knee, but he
discovered it only at the police station while filing his complaint.

Brown rode off on his bike and buried his gun near Longaberger Golf Course; he later guided a
Newark detective to the site.

Brown had consumed at least a 12-pack of beer that day, according to testimony, and “if not for
the amount of alcohol he’d consumed, this wouldn’t have happened,” Sutton said.

Brown maintained an organic garden “that was very dear” to him, Sutton told jurors, and was
upset because he thought the mosquito spray would poison his garden and his dogs, which also were
outside.

The following June, Brown pleaded guilty to three charges; the attempted-murder charge was
dropped. But a month later, just before his sentencing, Brown asked to rescind his plea.

In April 2013, two of three judges on a 5th District Court of Appeals panel agreed that Brown
should have been allowed to withdraw his guilty plea, and the case was returned to Licking
County.

Also yesterday, Brown expressed his regrets to Dierks for shooting at him.